Facebook, Governor Martinez announce Los Lunas data center expansion

LOS LUNAS, N.M. (KRQE) - The Facebook data center in Los Lunas is more than doubling in size.

Facebook and Gov. Susana Martinez announced Tuesday that they will add four more buildings and spend $1 billion on the new data center.

"This expansion is good news for New Mexico and I'm proud to continue building on our strong partnership with Facebook as they create jobs and grow their investment in our state," said Gov. Martinez in a news release. "This shows even more encouraging momentum, and we'll continue using our powerful tools and reforms to compete for more jobs and investment."

The data center will also provide jobs for many New Mexicans.

"Construction on the site is supporting over 1,000 long-term construction jobs and Facebook projects that the construction on this project will continue until the year 2023," Gov. Martinez said.

Once the data centers are live, Facebook could employ about 300 people to support day-to-day operations at the six-server farms.

Economic experts are also saying this investment will draw more businesses to the area.

"Other technology employers are saying, wait a minute. If Facebook has made that kind of commitment to New Mexico, maybe there is something about New Mexico we don't know," said Gary Tonjes, Albuquerque Economic Development President.

Also, soon some of your videos, pictures, memories and likes could be stored at the Los Lunas data center.

"All of our apps and services, our family of applications, the infrastructure is where all of those apps and services ride. So these are servers, the storage, and the network that run our apps and services," said KC Timmons, Head of Data Center Operations.

Two buildings are already under construction on the Los Lunas campus. The first building is expected to go live by the end of next year.

When the Los Lunas campus is finished, all the buildings will cover about 2.8-million square feet.

A 30-megawatt solar generation project is also being installed. The entire campus will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.